


like arthur under the hill

by Sixthlight



Category: Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch
Genre: Alternate Universe, CATWS fusion, Gen, Peter/Nightingale if you squint, Tumblr Ask Box Fic, but only if you squint very very hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-03-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 01:53:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6264982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixthlight/pseuds/Sixthlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nightingale falls asleep in 1945 and wakes up in 2012. Things are different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like arthur under the hill

**Author's Note:**

> In the ongoing process of polishing and moving bits and pieces from Tumblr to AO3. This was written for a Tumblr meme to post five headcanons about an alternate universe. stardust-rain asked for a Captain America: The Winter Soldier fusion, and it came out not as headcanons so much as fic, and honestly with only the most basic of gestures towards the CATWS set-up/plot. But here it is, anyway.

1\. What surprises Nightingale about London is how much of it he recognises, seventy years on. He’d seen the destruction of the Blitz, and the surprise there is not what’s gone but how it’s been rebuilt - you’d almost never know the city had been half-pounded into rubble. (Peter argues that of course you would, the patchwork of architectural styles is obvious. Peter is full of surprises.) Sometimes he’ll turn a corner and nothing’s changed; for a second, it might be 1944 again. It happens less and less as time goes on, but sometimes - just for a second.   
   
Then the people come into focus, and everything’s different - the clothes and the way they walk and even the sound of their voices - and Nightingale knows he’s alone and still doesn’t know  _why_. 

*

2\. Lesley isn’t sure what gods she offended to get assigned to babysit the DCI who’s been magically asleep since 1945 (what the  _hell_ ) and is also a  _wizard_  (what the  _fuck_ ) but Seawoll said he wanted someone he trusted to ‘keep an eye on the bugger’, unquote, so she hasn’t complained too much. She was a bit worried at first that he’d have some stupid ideas about women in the force, or whatever, but he hasn’t been anything but polite, and not in the way where it’s like he thinks she can’t do anything, either.   
   
He also does save her life, a little bit, from some ridiculous cat-monster-thing - Lesley disapproves of cat-monster-things running around London on principle, they’ve got enough trouble policing regular people - and she supposes that counts for something. He asks, afterwards, if she wants to learn magic; but Lesley knows what she wants and where she’s going, and all this magic stuff…that’s another path entirely.   
   
That evening they’re showing a test match at the AB local, England and the Springboks, so Lesley digs him out of that weird big old place they’ve stashed him in -  _the Folly,_ he says it’s called - and takes him to the pub. He said he liked rugby. As far as she can tell it’s the only thing they’ve got in common.   
   
They’re not going to be friends,because you can’t be friends with your senior officers, especially not one like Nightingale, but Lesley decides he might be all right after all. 

*

3\. Peter sees all sorts of people when he runs along the riverbank, doing all sorts of things - really, _all_ sorts of things, especially if he goes early enough - and he’s not sure what catches his eye about this guy. He’s forty, maybe, good-looking in a 1940s movie-star way, and something about that is what makes Peter realise it - it’s that guy Lesley’s been assigned to work with (and she _complains_ , Peter’s been stuck in the Case Progression Unit for two years now and he’d do just about anything to get out but she gets to work with a wizard, allegedly, not that she was supposed to tell him that, and she  _complains_ ).  
   
He’s got a surprising turn of speed, too, but Peter’s a little taller and they’re pretty well-matched. They end up sitting on a bench, chests heaving, as the morning sun lights up the Thames. Nightingale’s surprised and a bit wary when Peter knows who he is, but Peter explains about Lesley and he relaxes. Peter  _didn’t_ mean to let on he knew about the whole King Arthur-asleep-under-the-hill thing, but…magic. One thing leads to another and Peter’s digging up case files and HOLMES references for Nightingale, explaining how the system works in the now, Peter's now. H e’s so tired of other people’s paperwork and at least with Nightingale he feels like they're both learning something. A month later he’s swearing an oath in front of the Commissioner. It’s a weird oath, but Nightingale says that’s the deal - learn magic, take the oath.   
   
Peter can handle that. 

*

4\. Beverley knows wizards, all right? She knows there used to be thousands of them, and then they all got offed in the Second World War or quit, and then they started coming back a few years before she was born and they’re a right pain, you can’t trust them. But even Ty hasn’t been able to get anybody to do anything about them - it’s a worry. 

Beverley’s always liked mysteries. Turns out if you join the police you don’t actually spend a lot of time solving mysteries, at least not interesting ones, but given everything it’s useful to have someone in the Met, when taking care of her river and her mum's doesn't take precedence, and at least with the river patrol she gets to spend most of her time on or in the water.   
   
Then the Nightingale shows up. He’s before her mum’s time, but not the Old Man’s; that’s how they know he’s  _the_ Nightingale. So Beverley keeps an eye on him, and on the other cops he’s gathered - apprentices? Beverley’s not sure. She ends up hauling one of them out of the river - cute guy, even if he  _does_  turn out to be an apprentice, she can smell it all over him - and between one thing and another she has to introduce herself, properly. The cute guy - Peter Grant - looks half-way between sceptical and curious, but the Nightingale gives her a strangely delighted grin.   
   
“A pleasure to meet you,” he says. “Your river had no  _genius loci_  when I was…in my day. Nor did most of the tributaries in the city proper. Has that changed?”  
   
“You two,” Beverley says, “need to come and pay your respects to my mother.”

*

5. Alex is not a fan of conspiracy theories. But his life is turning into one, ever since this Nightingale bloke woke up, or...whatever it was he did. A whole lot of weird stuff, the kinds of things he’d assume were urban myths if he hadn’t seen the reports - women with carnivorous minges, cat-people, a rash of inexplicable suicides that might be because of fucking _mind control_ \- is adding up to a picture he really doesn’t like. But when he tries to take it upstairs - look, he doesn’t want to know about magic, but he can’t ignore that it exists - he gets shot down, and he’s beginning to think that’s not a coincidence.   
   
He makes a list of the people he trusts to look into this. It’s short. Miriam, of course. Nightingale’s the one who started stringing all this together in the first place. Lesley May - he’s beginning to regret assigning her to Nightingale, she’s a bloody good copper and she could do better elsewhere, but at least he can trust her. Peter Grant, who Nightingale somehow found in the Case Progression Unit, of all places, or maybe Grant found Nightingale; Alex isn't sure. Beverley Thames, with the river patrol - turns out she’s been keeping an eye of her own on Nightingale, which doesn’t sit well with Alex, but Nightingale seems to think she’s all right, at least for this. 

 It’s a short list, but it’ll have to do. 

 *

6. When the mask finally comes off, Nightingale wonders for a second if it’s going to be a face he recognises; if the strange sleep he fell into after Ettersberg had spread its wings over any of his colleagues; if it would be better or worse, if the person who’s wrought all this, this Faceless Man, is known to him. He’s never gotten close enough to taste a _signare_. Caution, but for what reason? 

But it’s nobody he knows, no trace of recognition at all, and he realises that he thought he might not be alone. That someone else might – 

 – no. It’s just him.   
   
   
7\. Peter grins at him, balancing a werelight in his hand.   
   
He’s not alone. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] like arthur under the hill](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13153452) by [sisi_rambles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sisi_rambles/pseuds/sisi_rambles)




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